Why You Absolutely Need a Blogging System

People like things to be predictable. Formulas—or patterned systems—are all around us.

Many popular action movies have the same basic plot, every criminal trial is supposed to be run with the same basic principles, the planets follow the same basic paths, and billions of dollars are spent every day in stocks, futures, and currency trades using complex formulas. Long story short—formulas are important, and for a good reason.

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Formulas allow our world to be predictable, and then allow us to repeatedly get what we want out of the world by simply learning those systems.

In this post, we’ll be discussing what systems are, why you need some for your blog, and then discuss some ideas for systematic blogging in order to help you create a repeatable, actionable process for making multiple successful and profitable blogs.

Why you need a system

The world’s rich usually fall into at least one of the following two categories: lucky or systematic. If you inherit a billion dollars, then you’re lucky. If you have an investing strategy that works, like Warren Buffett does, then you’re systematic.

If you find yourself short on the luck scale, then the fact that systematic success is, well, systematically predictable should come as pleasant news. If you have the formula for success, then you’re able to take a one-time good thing and turn it into an effectually infinite number of good things.

This is why so many “investor” guides and tutorials try to focus on finding the holy grail of technical analysis—they know if they can find a predictable pattern, they can make a fortune trading on the basis of that pattern.

Of course, most of those patterns just don’t work anywhere near like they’re supposed to work and a lot of “technical analysis” is rubbish, but that’s another topic for another time.

An introduction to systematic blogging

While blogging is obviously more of an art than an exact science, the notion of systematic blogging also still usually works as well. If you look at most successful bloggers who manage more than one successful blog, you’ll usually see that they employ plenty of the same principles, methods, and systems that give them predictable, repeatable blogging success.

Let’s look at a few arenas where this should be evident:

Staff writers. Hiring multiple freelance writers allows you to automate your blog. There’s a reason most of the biggest blogs on the Internet often have multiple writers—this allows the blog to be a little more manageable by the owner, while also allowing a new, fresh perspective to be added to the website’s content.

Content patterns. The need for being systematic couldn’t be more powerful than when it comes to your content. Consistent posting, learning basic headlines that are powerful, keeping a repeatable style going, etc. Each of these both builds your brand, systematically keeps traffic coming back because they know what to expect, and lead to longer-term success.

Social media building. Creativity is obviously absolutely critical to getting content to go viral. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be systematic as well. Strategically adding a Share or Like button is an obvious first step, but hard-wiring in a simple line asking for readers to spread the word so you can keep your content free can lead to an incredibly high response rate.

Design principles. Web usability is something many bloggers completely forget to master. Having a professional looking web design is just step one. Having a functional web design that gets conversions and is easy to use is another matter entirely. There are entire blogs based on finding the most compelling way to build trust and relationships with different color schemes, textures, and other bits of design.

Newsletter marketing. Mixing a great newsletter offer with strong conversion-usability is probably the best way to get systematic success. Newsletter readers are often highly responsive, and you can reach them directly in their email box whenever you need to. To say this is “powerful” is an understatement. Mixing high-quality blogging with a strong understanding of email marketing is pure systematic, repeatable income dynamite.

Website usability. A pretty design is good, a usable design is better, and a beautiful and usable design is the best. Website usability is essentially the field of figuring out which little changes to a design/content get the most results. Using subtitles, figuring out where to put the sidebar, and knowing where to put ads can literally increase your traffic and earnings by 10 fold over time. I once spent some time buying smaller niche blogs, installing different designs, and then just updating them with content—it’s possible to double revenue with the same amount of traffic. That’s systematic success. This arena overlaps with design principles, but because of the nature of how usability is part of all of your content production, it includes a bit more than just the main theme of your blog.

As with everything worth doing in life, building a systematic, repeatable blogging model takes time, experience, and research. Learning how to do this correctly can thrust your blog into the realms of higher earnings, higher traffic, and even give you some extra free time without costing you a penny.

What are some ideas of systematic tactics that can make everything you do more efficient, more profitable, or more popular? Share your ideas in the comments below.

Shaun Connell has been a full-time professional blogger since 2008, and focuses his time at his newest blog Live Gold Prices, where he writes about investing in gold, predicting future gold prices, and finding financial security.

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There is nothing that turns me off a blog more than when I see the blogger is talking about something which he does know nothing about.
When I give my opinion or criticize his ideas, they can’t back up their claims and tips, and this is quite important to build a kind of trust and a faithful readership.

As others have mentioned this is great information. I would like to add that it is also well written and easy to digest. As a new blogger seeking to cultivate a niche market, this is what I need to know. Thanks

Well, maybe some people think this post has some very great content and easy to digest. Of course it is easy to digest because there is no juice that can be extracted from this post. This is just a hastily written outline of the strategy that many successful bloggers claim having followed.

And Shaun you completely got the analogy of Warren Buffet wrong in this case. He does not follow any particular system of investment. His principles of investing are based on the basics of business and that is : – what are the prospects of the business being profitable in the future.

Anyways, thanks for the short outline for a successful blogging strategy.

I especially like the note on usability. How many times have we come across websites that might be fancy shmancy but are not really very usable. I think, more than anything, lack of usability is what sends visitors scurrying away from our sites.

It’s very true that building a successful blog doesn’t happen overnight but takes time, consistency and dedication. Providing tremendous value and setting yourself apart from everyone else by branding yourself is a powerful key to your online success.

There is certainly one element to being systematic in your blogging that is huge for me – consistency. Knowing that I must publish three articles a week, on Monday Wednesday and Friday, provides solid boundaries for me to work within. If I didn’t have a system such as this, then who knows how often I would publish new articles?

Having an easy way to publish your blog posts make life so much easier! I also keep a list of blog ideas on my computer desktop that way, when you come to sit down to write, you can just focus on the research and writing and not worry about the topic because you already have a list to choose from.

In our dental practice, we have systems to make sure that goals are accomplished on an hourly, daily, month, weekly, and yearly basis. Without concrete systems in place to measure progress and goals, most things will FAIL.

Thanks for writing this insightful post… Going to make sure we start taking a more systematic (yet still keep creativity!) when doing our blogging.

You definitely need to be systematic with blogging and anything else that you do. You may think that you are following the Slight Edge when really in fact you are doing the activities that do not bring in results. And unfortunately you do not find that thing out for weeks or perhaps even months. So the best thing to do is to do the work for a week and ask your coach and mentor for help even when you do not understand it, and do not worry about getting your work stepped on. It is the only way that you will learn.

Hi Shaun: The worlds of the beginning and experienced blogger is like comparing a small regional city in the US to Paris. Yep, both are cities. But the real world experience between the two is more about their differences than similarities.

No one appreciates ProBlogger more than I, but the lessons of blogging and social media are pretty simple. Daily observations of the same concepts put differently lead you to one conclusion; work hard and stick to the fundamentals and you will achieve fundamental success.

Great tips- I am figuring all this out – and working on improving usability. As an interior designer i Am happy with my sites overall design. I plan on Shortening posts with ‘read more’ and improving comments area – adding ‘like’ ‘share’ . Any other suggestions?
Thnx, laura